DATA CENTER MIGRATION WITHOUT DOWNTIME: THE CASE STUDY OF OPENPOP SA

Present in Ticino since 2014, Openpop SA was created by professionals in the sector with more than ten years of experience gained in multinationals. The company deals with the management of Internet systems and Data Centers for large players that require performance and security above the market standards. Openpop SA works in cybersecurity and clustering of custom systems that need higher performance for infrastructures with millions of users/hour. The strong experience allows Openpop SA to offer its customers immediate scalability, redundancy (also geographical), high availability, and business continuity, in physical or virtualized environments locally and/or on the cloud. The team manages Data Center networks with multi-homed interconnection on different carriers, optimizing routes to and from Transit providers, and managing relationships with CDN and Data Center providers. Complete the offer 360° security assessments, and implementation of solutions for information protection and systems clustering.

Openpop’s customer, a leader company in B2B tourism, asked to move its IT infrastructure away from one of the giants of the sector based in Geneva. The research started immediately and systematically, as the requirements to which the new structure should have responded were already evident. The first essential prerequisite was that the new structure should have been able to guarantee (or exceed) the high-quality service standards they use to have in Geneva. The team wouldn’t have accepted reductions in these terms. Openpop SA also needed total flexibility to access and install more than 100 physical machines. "(...) We need to be able to move freely and without restrictions to guarantee to our customer an efficient, fast and uninterrupted movement". These are the words of the CTO, Stefania Calcagno. Primary was also the possibility to choose the carriers to ensure maximum performance. Finally, an approach to Openpop SA’s HQ in Ticino would have been evaluated as an added value, as it would have facilitated the technical support operations on site.

The high level of service of Bancadati played a substantial role in its selection. It would have guaranteed redundancy of all critical systems and, therefore, continuity of service, thanks to an uptime higher than that defined for the Tier III category. Bancadati, moreover, responded to all other prerogatives to allow Openpop SA to migrate the entire infrastructure in an optimal way and without technical downtime:

• CARRIER NEUTRAL → The wide choice of carriers available facilitated the reduction of time and, therefore, the movement’s success.
• FLEXIBILITY → Bancadati allows its customers autonomous access to the structure 24/7/365, leaving them full autonomy and flexibility in carrying out operations. Constant control of badges and fingerprints ensures the highest level of security.
• STRATEGIC HUB → The Data Center is located a short distance from the Lugano Nord highway exit, allowing Openpop SA to cut the time for technical support interventions drastically.

Through a complete redundancy of the infrastructure on various levels, Openpop SA avoided completely service downtime, limiting only the processing power. However, this didn’t affect the everyday activities of the client, given the COVID post-emergency situation. Another point managed impeccably was the need of a redundant connectivity at the time of the switch. This detail would have allowed the re-routing of the client’s IP addresses at the right time, without interrupting the Internet connections.

As a result of these activities, the team concluded the shout-down and dismantlement of the last machines in Geneva and brought them to Lugano in the following days. In a short time, the IT infrastructure was reassembled and put into production to restore the original network equipment.

www.openpop.eu
Corso San Gottardo 73, 6830 Chiasso
Switzerland